Death Only Comes Once
by Sifl-senpai
Summary: Link wanders in the woods in search of a pair of lost souls.
The smoke swirled in the land beyond the horizon, past the point where the living encroached upon the dead, but not yet where the soul was held fast in eternity.

Link ambled calmly in the quiet mist. He wove between the trees holding vigil for the bodies their roots were quietly cremating to dust and dirt, and let his hands feel the crust of the bark scrape against his hands. The place was very familiar to him; he rode a horse through here once, long, long ago.

He could not help but reminisce on that day, when the earth had swallowed him whole and then twisted his decomposing spirit into the shape of something raw, fresh, helpless, and mournfully green, greener than his emerald hat, greener than the leaves above his head.

Yes, death had been frightening, the first time.

But the Woods had spat him back up when he had sunk his teeth into the destiny it had planned for him. Now, it let him wander in and out of its clutches as he pleased.

Once bitten, twice shy. That was how Link justified it, anyway.

The mist was his only company as he explored the Wood. Link kicked at it as if it were part of his own playground and not the breath of a temple for something older than faith itself.

"Are you watching me?" Link asked the still air. "Because I've been looking for you."

The branches blocking out the sunlight above did not so much as rustle. He took a stick from the forest floor and tapped the side of the nearest tree. It stirred up the milky fog around him, but otherwise left the dead air undisturbed.

Link walked until he reached the precipice of a hollowed tree that was so wide and fell so deep beneath the surface of the earth that he could only barely grasp the depth of the blackness lurking inside. Whistling to himself, Link hooked his fingers around the grooves in the tree's remains and leaned forward to peer into the darkness, as if he could see all the way down death's throat.

"Hello," he called, unfazed by how the rotting wood threatened to give under his feet. "I've never much liked being the first tagged as 'it' in hide-and-go seek. If you were smart, you'd come to me."

The air wafting up from the dark below remained earthy and listless.

"Hey. Hi." Link tried again.

Nothing answered.

He waited until his echo was lost in the pit, and then danced on the edge of his footing with a spin as he turned to face the mist again.

Two pairs of glowing orange eyes that had not been there before appeared out of the stillness and ambushed him. Their owners, two twin crones, grabbed Link and pushed him backwards.

"Well, then, _tag_ , little boy! _We've_ found _you_!" the one on the right said as she wrapped her sinewy fingers around Link's throat when he refused to fall down.

"You've lost! _Lost!_ " her sister cried, digging black nails into the flesh of Link's arm and chest. "Now you die, you wretched child! Die the way you were meant to, so many years ago, the years that you erased and ran away from!"

Link kicked one of the twin hags away and pulled the other's vice grip from his throat. She made a bid for his eyes, but he bit down on her fingers when they came close.

At that, she shrieked and evaporated into mist. Her grounded sister glared at Link before following suit.

"Wait, come back," Link said, coughing. "I only bite when you try and choke me." He rubbed at his neck and arm while he distanced himself from the endless hole in the wood. "I don't actually want to hurt you. In fact, I was looking for you."

"So _that's_ what he says for himself, Kotake!" One old, dry voice barked and snapped from within the mist.

Another answered like an echo. "I think he's _lying_ , Koume!"

"What should we do?" The wind picked up, hot in one moment and then icy the next, and churned the mist together as the temperatures intertwined.

"We show him a fate worse than death!" The fog spun around in a maelstrom. "He locked our son into something like that, after all! Such an outrageous child!"

"Oh, yes! We _should_ return the favor, shouldn't we, Kotake?"

"An eye for an eye! _Right_ , Koume?"

Two voices cackled in tandem.

"We've been _waiting_ for this, boy!" The mist darkened and grew until a blast of light flashed from within it to sear the shape of a giant with eyes like hellfire into Link's memory.

Then, the fog swooped forward to grab Link with a right hand that burned like fire and a left one that gripped at him with all the mercy of a blizzard. The two fought for a hold on Link's body, and then victoriously hoisted him up in the air. He screamed as his mind tried to reconcile the sensation of blackening frostbite with that of a white-hot burn.

"You! You trapped our son in a limbo, left forever to suffer!" The monstrous Twinrova screeched in a cacophonous harmony. " _Forever_! We could not even see him in death! You damned him! You did!"

Link choked out a noise, but his words were lost. The clothing on his right side began to char.

Twinrova's fingers wrapped around him more tightly, and her face slowly emerged from the fog like the head of a snake rising from its den. "I said I'd be back to haunt you!"

Link gritted his teeth. "No, you didn't!"

"Eh? Yes, I did!"

"It was only one sister, not the two," Link bit out.

"What are you blathering on about? Just be quiet and die like a good boy!"

Link shook his head, gasping for air despite his pain. "Only _one_ of you said _anything_ like that, and it wasn't as Twinrova!"

The grip around his body loosened, and the Twin Witch went cross-eyed as if to look at herself.

"So which was it?!" Link screamed. "Was it Koume or Kotake? Who promised to haunt me?"

The twin witch blinked, her pupils still facing her nose. "Koume, is he telling the truth?" She muttered with only one voice.

Another, higher one erupted from her mouth in answer. "I don't know! But what does it matter! You're letting him distract you, you old crone!"

"Old?!" The first voice said. "I'm younger than you are!"

"For the last time, we're _twins_ , you idiot! You're never going to fool anyone with a lie as stupid as that!"

"How would _you_ know?! It might work if you weren't always running your fat mouth!"

" _Fat_?! Well, _excuse me!_ It's no fatter than _yours_ , you wrinkled, blowhard bag!"

" _Wrinkled_?! _Blowhard_?!"

Link wriggled his shield off of his back and then slid through the bickering Twinrova's fingers. He took a moment to steel himself on the ground, and then pulled out his bow and an arrow imbued with the essence of light itself from the quiver on his back. He winced as the heavy, clumsy fingers of his left hand scraped against the grip of his bow and the blistered skin of his right broke open as he pinched the arrow, but his shot flew true and sank into one of Twinrova's golden eyes.

She screamed and released Link's shield in favor of plastering her hands over her face, and then screeched again when the fires of her right side seared the frozen flesh of her left fingers.

Link scrambled backwards and held his released shield over his face.

The giantess split down her center in a flash of light and an explosion of smoke, and left two gnarled old women in her place. Both held their eyes in their hands and flailed on the bed of dry leaves covering over the wet earth.

"You wretched boy!" They screamed in tandem.

Link swallowed his body's complaints and strode forward to grab both sisters by the hair. Then, he dragged them over to the gaping, bottomless mouth of the Woods and dangled them both over its edge.

"Koume!" cried Kotake. "I've used too much magic! I can't disappear!"

"Neither can I!" Koume affirmed.

The two of them kicked and clawed at Link, and he gave them a rough shake to silence them. "If you keep that up, I really will drop you," Link said.

The sisters froze, and then stared at him with their bug eyes.

"We're going to die again!" Kotake cried, grabbing onto Koume. "It's because we're twins, isn't it?!" She sniffed. "We're too beautiful to die twice!"

Next to her, Koume blanched. "We'll be gone forever, like we never existed! No eternal spirit, no nothing!"

They held one another and wailed. Both Link and the branches above him watched, nonplussed.

"Nah, nothing like that," Link said. "Don't worry- death usually comes only once, even for you. I only need to make sure you cross over before something _truly_ horrible comes to claim you out here."

Kotake spluttered. "You? Protecting _us_?"

"From something horrible?" Koume rounded on him. "That's what you _say_ , you horrible young man! You're a _liar_ and a _murderer_ and a _hare-eared Hylian son of a bitch_ and you _damned our people's only son!_ " Her black claws struck out at him and nicked his cheek. While her sister spat at him.

Link winced as the wetness collided with his face. "And your son killed my father," he said simply, and let both Koume and Kotake fall into the eternal blackness below.

"Safe travels," he said. "I wonder if _you'll_ see _me_ when you make it to the end."

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

 **Author's Note:**

 **This adheres to some of the Majora's Mask Theories about death and the stages of grief, but plays with it as I see fit.**

 **Honestly, I just needed to write some Link for a little while. (I have been writing a lot of Dragonball!)**

 **This may get recycled into something newer and better, but for now, here it is as a cohesive scene.**

 **Thanks for reading! And thank you even more to those of you who leave comments!**


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